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This post contains affiliate links, because I like money, but I s2g I wrote this post before adding the affiliate links and the monetization does not affect my opinions.

As someone who doesn’t have an Instagram account, I’m not the kind of person you’d expect to pull the desperate move of using the spotty cell reception between MUNI stops to purchase tickets to an Instagram/selfie museum via my phone the minute they were released, but that’s exactly what I did in in early May, for the Saturday, June 23 session of Refinery29’s 29Rooms in San Francisco, at the Palace of Fine Arts.

Refinery29 describes 29Rooms as an “exhibition comprised of 29 unique spaces that showcase a range of creative disciplines, from poetry to painting to responsive technology,” featuring collaborations “with a broad range of artists, talent, and brands.” 29Rooms first launched in 2015, but this is the first time they’ve held their pop-up “multi-sensory playground” in San Francisco. The theme for this year’s 29Rooms is “Turn It Into Art.”

I’d already been to the Color Factory back in March, which was a joyously self-centered experience well worth the price of admission. At $35 per person (before fees), the tickets to 29Rooms were comparable in price, and I was sure that Refinery29’s take on the “Instagram/selfie museums” that have been leaving their non-biodegradable mess of plastic sprinkles all over the city* would be a good one, given their track record of publishing solid fashion and lifestyle content.

(Honestly I’ve been reading a lot less Refinery29 these days than I used to because I feel like their content quality has decreased significantly since the early 2010s, but still. They’re cool! Or so I thought…)

This post contains affiliate links, because I like money, but I s2g I wrote this post before adding the affiliate links and the monetization does not affect my opinions.

For some reason, I’ve been really into coveralls/jumpsuits lately (and not so lately). Here are two from Forever21 that I’ve been convincing myself not to buy for a week now, as part of my no-spend attempt:

This post contains affiliate links, because I like money, but I s2g I wrote this post before adding the affiliate links and the monetization does not affect my opinions.

My partner and I are taking a quick trip to San Luis Obispo in a few weeks before he starts his new job, and I am PSYCHED to be taking a mini-vacation where I can spend most of the time half-naked instead of swaddled in layers of thermal underwear and puffer coats. (We’ve only been on trips together during the wintertime so far.)

For me, hot weather = flimsy bralettes and no underwire, so I was window shopping on Aerie as I am wont to do when I came across THESE AMAZING HIGH-NECK ONE PIECE SWIMSUITS:

OhHhHhH my GOD. The high neck, the high waist, the torso cutouts!!! The green one feels kind of chic and modernized-retro, whereas the striped one honestly reeks of, like, the early 2000s to me, but in the best way?!

I already have a weakness for one-piece swimsuits/maillots because I think they’re way sexier than bikinis or two-pieces (plus you can actually swim in them), but I’m also particularly inclined to fall hard for high-necked swimsuit options because I have keloid scarring on my sternum area (from very mild pubescent acne that healed badly and scarred over into a few disproportionately large masses of raised scar tissue).

In the past I’ve just been like fuck it!!! I’ll wear whatever I want and people can avert their eyes if I’m too unsightly for them!!!, but the fact remains that my scars still get irritated and red and itchy and painful sometimes (a common complaint among people prone to keloids), and I am self-conscious about them.

That, plus the fact that scars sunburn more easily than other skin, plus the fact that owning a high-necked swimsuit that my boobs will actually stay put in would buy me a bit of mental freedom… seem to add up to I should buy at least one of these…

Shouldn’t I?

[EDIT: Reader, I bought them. They fit pretty well, although my bustline is quite low so I have to shove my boobs way up or else half of them hang out of the torso cutout. The fabric covering the torso also doesn’t lie perfectly flat on my body, but it helps the fit a lot if I tie the straps really tight. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Worth it.]

The above coveralls/jumpsuits are the same cut and design, but it’s kind of amazing what a difference the color makes – the olive green one on the right is making me revisit my previous Coverall Imagine™ involving cars and explosions and fauxtor oil, whereas the barely-there blush pink one on the left would clearly be worn by either a sexy veterinarian/pet rescue worker with a soft spot for black cats and very large dogs, or your sexy assigned lab partner for ChemE whose hair you can’t help but notice always smells faintly of coffee and Flowerbomb by Viktor & Rolf, and whose color-coded notes she always lets you borrow because she’s both a straight-A student and a good person.